Data Editor

For Connecticut residents, the largest cumulative payout to Powerball winners was in 1999, at nearly $60 million. But when Powerball winnings are compared to those from other lottery games, they rank only third.

In 2013, Cash 5 players won nearly 10 times as much money as Powerball winners – $455 million versus $52 million.

Total lottery sales in Connecticut have grown tremendously since the lottery was introduced in 1972, from $17 million to more than $1.1 billion in 2013.

Of those 2013 sales, about 63 percent – about $700 million – was paid out to winners.

Commissions paid to registered lottery ticket sellers in 2013 totaled about $62 million. The state government received about $312 million in lottery proceeds.

The chart below reflects gaming revenue to the state since 1972.

At its peak, parimutuel betting on sports like jai alai contributed $25 million to the state coffers. Connecticut was one of the few states, like Florida, to allow betting on jai alai starting in the 1970s, but its popularity declined through the 1990s, and the last Connecticut venue, in Bridgeport, closed in 2001.

State revenue from the lottery has grown consistently year over year, to about $320 million in 2014.

The state began receiving gaming revenue from casinos in 1992. The peak amount was $430 million in 2007, but it has since declined to about $280 in 2014.

Andrew is a data editor at TrendCT.org and the Connecticut Mirror. He teaches data visualization at Central Connecticut State University as well intro to data journalism at Wesleyan University as a Koeppel Fellow.
He was a founding producer of The Boston Globe's Data Desk where he used a variety of methods to visualize or tell stories with data. Andrew also was an online producer at The Virginian-Pilot and a staff writer at the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. He’s a Metpro Fellow, a Chips Quinn Scholar, and a graduate of the University of Texas.